By Sara Bright
When shadows stretch across the London Coliseum stage, and bodies press urgently against a monolithic wall, Akram Khan’s Giselle announces itself as a revolution. This is not the pastoral idyll of 1841, where peasant girls pirouette in sunlit glades. Instead, English National Ballet’s 2026 revival thrusts audiences into a world of migrant labour, fractured hierarchies, and spectral vengeance. Khan’s reworking of the Romantic ballet is a masterclass in cultural alchemy – where classical Indian kathak collides with contemporary movement, and Adolphe Adam’s score mutates into something thunderous, visceral, and new.
Reimagining a Romantic Classic
The original Giselle hinges on betrayal and forgiveness, but Khan refracts these themes through a modern prism. Gone are the Rhineland vineyards; in their place, a dystopian wall divides the Outcasts – a community of migrant labourers – from the factory Landlords who exploit them. Giselle, performed with raw vulnerability, is no ethereal waif but a woman hardened by survival. Her lover Albrecht, disguised as an Outcast, is revealed as a Landlord, his deception catalysing her descent into madness. Khan’s narrative choices amplify the ballet’s socio-political resonance, transforming a tale of individual heartbreak into an indictment of systemic oppression.
Dance as Political Allegory
Khan’s choreography is a language of resistance. The Outcasts move in unison, their bodies rippling like currents against an immovable force. Kathak’s rhythmic footwork and spiralling turns merge with ballet’s extensions and arabesques, creating a hybrid vocabulary that feels both ancient and urgent. In one electrifying sequence, dancers cluster like storm clouds, their limbs slicing through Vincent Lamagna’s brooding score. The Wilis – traditionally sylph-like spirits – here emerge as furies, their vengeance reframed as collective retribution. Their relentless, hypnotic patterns evoke the inevitability of uprising, a stark contrast to the Landlords’ rigid, militaristic formations.
Choreography That Defies Gravity
The genius of Khan’s Giselle lies in its physical storytelling. Myrthe, queen of the Wilis, commands not with balletic grace but with kathak’s sharp precision, her gestures slicing through the air like blades. Albrecht’s solos, heavy with guilt, unravel in weighted contractions and spiralling falls. Even the pas de deux between Giselle and Albrecht – once a duet of reconciliation – becomes a visceral tug-of-war, their bodies entangled in push-pull dynamics that mirror the story’s power imbalances. The ensemble scenes, meanwhile, are architectural marvels: human walls crumble and rebuild, bodies become machinery, and the stage thrums with kinetic energy.
A Score That Echoes Despair
Vincenzo Lamagna’s reworking of Adam’s original music is less an adaptation than a reinvention. Played live by the English National Ballet Philharmonic, the score layers industrial drones with haunting motifs, as if the orchestra itself is trapped between worlds. Cellos groan under the weight of Giselle’s grief, while percussion mimics the relentless grind of factory labour. Lamagna’s soundscape doesn’t accompany the dance – it invades it, merging with Tim Yip’s stark set design to create an atmosphere thick with foreboding. The infamous Wilis’ theme, once a delicate waltz, now pulses like a dirge, its rhythms syncopated to mirror the Outcasts’ fractured existence.
Why Giselle Haunts Us Still
At its core, Khan’s production interrogates who gets to be seen as human. The Outcasts, costumed in grime-streaked workwear, are rendered invisible by the Landlords’ opulent indifference – until their fury erupts. Giselle’s tragedy isn’t just her betrayal but her erasure; even in death, she exists in the margins, a ghost pleading for agency. Yet Khan resists bleakness. In the final act, as Giselle shields Albrecht from the Wilis’ wrath, her gestures soften into something resembling grace. It’s a fleeting moment of transcendence, suggesting that love – or perhaps solidarity – might still dismantle walls.
A Triumph of Collaborative Vision
This Giselle thrives on its interdisciplinary daring. Tim Yip’s set – a sloping, oppressive wall – serves as both prison and canvas, its surface scarred by shadows and projections. Mark Henderson’s lighting isolates characters in stark pools or drowns them in noirish gloom, while Yip’s costumes strip away Romantic-era frippery to expose raw, utilitarian textures. Every element conspires to immerse the audience in Giselle’s world, making her plight inescapably immediate.
The Legacy of a Modern Myth
Since its 2016 premiere, Khan’s Giselle has been hailed as a milestone in narrative dance. Its 2026 revival at the London Coliseum reaffirms its relevance, arriving amid global debates on migration and inequality. Critics have praised its audacity – the way it dares to ask, “Whose stories matter?” while delivering a spectacle that sears itself into memory. For newcomers, the production offers a gateway into contemporary ballet’s potential; for seasoned audiences, it invites rediscovery of a familiar tale, reshaped by a visionary’s hand.
English National Ballet’s Giselle is more than performance – it’s a provocation. Akram Khan doesn’t merely retell a classic; he resurrects it, blood and bone, for an era defined by walls and the voices that breach them. To witness it is to feel the weight of history and the crackle of rebellion, entwined in every step. As the curtain falls, one leaves not with catharsis but a question: Which side of the wall are you on?
Akram Khan’s Giselle runs at the London Coliseum. Tickets are available via English National Ballet’s official website.
